For Mikel John Obi, it was the boyhood dream that soured. “It was a disaster,” the Nigeria midfielder says of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil – his first involvement at finals.
From the outside looking in, there was a depressingly familiar undercurrent in the form of a pay dispute between the Nigeria Football Federation and the players. It led to a boycott of training from the latter days before the last-16 tie against France, which they lost 2-0. From the inside looking out, it was simply toxic.
“There were a lot of problems in the camp which a lot of people didn’t see, the media didn’t see – we kind of hid it under the table,” Mikel says. “The relationships between the players were not good and there was no discipline. There was no good feeling, no good vibe.
“It almost got to people being pinned up against dressing-room walls, although not quite. It was confrontation and arguments. Players wanted to do their own thing and they didn’t think about the team.”
Mikel is looking ahead to captaining Nigeria at the Russia World Cup and the preparations will ramp up on Saturday with the friendly against England at Wembley – the scene of some of Mikel’s most memorable triumphs from his 10 and a half seasons at Chelsea. The 31-year-old is now at Tianjin Teda in the Chinese Super League.
But the past is unavoidable for Nigeria and it has shaped what is a new era for them under the manager, Gernot Rohr – a disciplinarian German – and Mikel, whose status within the setup goes way beyond wearing the armband on match days.
The turmoil in Brazil had followed similar internal conflict at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when Nigeria departed at the group phase. Mikel missed the tournament through injury but he heard the stories and, afterwards, the then Nigeria president, Goodluck Jonathan, ruled that the national team should be suspended from competition for two years. The measure would be rescinded but it illustrated the depths of the despair; the sense that the squad had become ungovernable.
“There were massive problems in the camp and that’s why the president got upset,” Mikel says. “He said: ‘Until you guys fix yourselves up, that’s it. No more.’ The public were upset but they were in support of it because they also wanted whatever was going on to stop. We couldn’t keep going to tournaments and making a mockery of ourselves.” It almost got to people being pinned against dressing-room walls, although not quite. It was confrontation and arguments
It was tempting to conclude that the shock therapy failed but, after Brazil, there remained the appetite for what Mikel describes as “radical change”. The squad has been purged and it says everything that Rohr will take only five survivors from the previous finals to Russia – Mikel, Victor Moses, Ahmed Musa, Ogenyi Onazi and Kenneth Omeruo.
The transition has been painful. Nigeria failed to qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations in 2015 and 2017 – a sentence that ought to finish with an exclamation mark. This is Nigeria – estimated population: 195 million; the largest African country, by far. They had won the 2013 Cup of Nations, in which Mikel was outstanding.
Mikel says that Rohr has driven the upturn through his attention to detail and his insistence upon certain standards, all of which come under the umbrella of putting the team first. He is forensic in his video-analysis sessions, his meetings, his work on set pieces, and that has added up to a change in the collective mentality.
Rohr’s squad is young and their inexperience is a worry. He has a group of 25 for the fixture against England; 14 of them are aged 25 or under. The young guns include Wilfred Ndidi, Alex Iwobi and Kelechi Iheanacho. But, crucially, Mikel says they are together; ready to fight for each other.